Teleu's eyes opened.
His expression was blank, unreadable—stone carved into the shape of a young man. Yet beneath the surface, a quiet satisfaction stirred. The night's introspection had clarified what needed to be done. The mystical architecture of Nubia, the layers of the astral planes, the requirements for advancement—all of it had settled into his mind with the precision of a blade finding its sheath.
He rose from the bed, his movements deliberate and controlled. The small house was silent. Outside, the garden stirred faintly with the morning breeze, but Teleu's thoughts were elsewhere—turned inward, toward the paths he walked and the choices that had shaped them.
Teleu had admired his mother from the bottom of his heart.
She had been gentle. Righteous. Compassionate. She had moved through the world with a grace that made even the cruelest nobles soften in her presence. She had taught him kindness, integrity, and the belief that power should serve the people, not enslave them.
He had inherited some of those traits. He carried them still, buried beneath layers of survival and calculation.
But life had not been kind to someone of royal descent.
The realities of existence—brutal, unforgiving, merciless—had revealed themselves early. His mother's murder. The betrayal of his uncle. The blood-soaked floors of his childhood home. and those mysterious forces behind everything.
These truths had shaped him in ways his mother's lessons could not protect against.
And so, when the time came to choose his spiritual paths, Teleu had made a decision that would have horrified the woman who raised him.
He chose to walk the Gray Path.
The choice had not been made lightly.
Teleu understood the risks. The Gray Path was treacherous—mystics who attempted to balance Light and Dark often found themselves torn apart, their souls fractured by the conflicting energies of the entities they served. Madness. Possession. Spiritual collapse.
But Teleu also understood necessity.
He could not carry out his revenge if he forced himself to walk only the Light Path. The journey would be too slow, too cautious, too bound by moral restrictions that his enemies did not share. By the time he reached the power he needed, his uncle would have solidified his rule, and the throne of Ankh would be lost forever.
Yet he also could not walk the Dark Path alone. He would not sacrifice his humanity for power. He would not become the monster his enemies believed him to be. He would not abandon the lessons his mother had etched into his soul, even if survival demanded pragmatism.
And so, he chose balance.
Or perhaps, more accurately, he chose strategy.
As a spirit-child, Teleu had been granted a rare gift: access to three Routes from birth, standing at the third grade of initiation in each. Most practitioners had to master one Route entirely before even attempting a second. Teleu's blessing allowed him to diversify—to build a foundation across multiple disciplines simultaneously.
After deep thought in his younger years, he had chosen the three Routes that would serve his agenda.
The Warrior Route—because physical prowess was essential. If he was to crush those who had destroyed his family, he needed strength, speed, and the presence to dominate battlefields. He needed to become a weapon.
The Ruler Route—because he planned to claim his father's throne. To govern a kingdom, to command armies, to navigate the political labyrinth of Nubia's nobility—these required not just ambition, but the spiritual authority to make men follow.
The Scholar Route—because revenge demanded more than brute force. He needed the mind to outthink his enemies, to structure plans so intricate that his opponents would not see him coming until it was too late. Knowledge was a blade sharper than steel.
But the true genius of his strategy lay not in the Routes themselves, but in how he walked them.
Teleu had split his paths.
He walked the Warrior Route on the Dark Path.
The decision had been coldly logical. The entities of the Dark Path granted power—raw, overwhelming, immediate power. The kind of strength that could level armies. The kind of presence that paralyzed enemies with fear. His master had warned him of the cost, but Teleu had accepted it.
He needed that power. No matter the sacrifice. No matter what others called him—broken, foolish, corrupted. He would seize it.
But he walked the Ruler Route on the Light Path.
If he was to become a king, he could not rule through terror alone. A kingdom built on fear would collapse the moment his presence wavered. He needed legitimacy. Authority rooted in something deeper than domination. The entities of the Light Path—ancestors, guardians of order, spirits of righteous governance—would grant him that foundation.
And he walked the Scholar Route on the Light Path as well.
The mind could not be clouded by the dense, seductive emotions of the Dark Path. Rage, ambition, hunger—these were useful in battle, but catastrophic in strategy. A scholar needed clarity. Objectivity. The ability to see patterns without being consumed by them.
This was Teleu's compromise. This was his Gray Path.
Dark in war. Light in rule and thought.
Over the years, through relentless practice, sacrifice, and negotiation with entities he would never speak of aloud, Teleu had advanced.
His Warrior Route had progressed the fastest.
He was now a Third Grade Adept Warrior of the Dark Path.
The implications of that rank were not lost on him. He could intimidate enemies through presence alone—his aura, invisible to the untrained eye, pressed down on opponents like a physical weight. He could battle multiple First and Second Tier practitioners without losing his advantage. His body had been pushed beyond normal human limits—faster reflexes, heightened pain tolerance, and an instinctive awareness of killing intent.
But the cost was undeniable.
When Teleu entered combat, something shifted inside him. A hunger awakened. A need to finish what he started. Blood called to him. The entities he had pacted with whispered in the back of his mind, urging brutality, demanding violence. He could not control it entirely—once the fight began, he became something darker, something that did not stop until his enemies were dead.
He had filled his Warrior Route with full-on brutality.
And he carried it like a scar.